Data Science Interview Q’s — III

A walkthrough with/from the essentials of data science interviews.

Hi hey there, thanks for the continuous support for my previous articles. Today we
will continue from our previous article “Data Science Interview Q’s — II” PART-II, the
commonly asked essential questions by the interviewers to understand the root level
knowledge of DS rather than going for fancy advanced questions.

1. Let A and B be events on the same sample space, with P (A) = 0.6
and P (B) = 0.7. Can these two events be disjoint?

A) Yes B) No

Solution: (B) These two events cannot be disjoint because P(A)+P(B) >1.

P(A ꓴ B) = P(A)+P(B)-P(A ꓵ B). An event is disjoint if P(A ꓵ B) = 0. If A and B are

disjoint P(A ꓴ B) = 0.6+0.7 = 1.3

And Since probability cannot be greater than 1, these two mentioned events cannot
be disjoint.

2. Alice has 2 kids and one of them is a girl. What is the

probability that the other child is also a girl? You can assume that
there are an equal number of males and females in the world.
A) 0.5 B) 0.25

C) 0.333 D) 0.75

Solution: The outcomes for two kids can be {BB, BG, GB, GG} Since it is mentioned
that one of them is a girl, we can remove the BB option from the sample space.
Therefore the sample space has 3 options while only one fits the second condition.
Therefore the probability the second child will be a girl too is 1/3.

3. A fair six-sided die is rolled twice. What is the probability of

getting 2 on the first roll and not getting 4 on the second roll?

A) 1/36 B) 1/18

C) 5/36 D) 1/6

E) 1/3

Solution: The two events mentioned are independent. The first roll of the die is
independent of the second roll. Therefore the probabilities can be directly multiplied.

P(getting first 2) = 1/6 P(no second 4) = 5/6

Therefore P(getting first 2 and no second 4) = 1/6* 5/6 = 5/36

4. Which of the following options cannot be the probability of

any event?

A) -0.00001 B) 0.5

C) 1.001 A) Only A

B) Only B C) Only C

D) A and B E) B and C

F) A and C

Solution: (F) Probability always lie within 0 to 1.

5. Anita randomly picks 4 cards from a deck of 52-cards and places

them back into the deck ( Any set of 4 cards is equally likely ).
Then, Babita randomly chooses 8 cards out of the same deck ( Any set
of 8 cards is equally likely). Assume that the choice of 4 cards by
Anita and the choice of 8 cards by Babita are independent. What is
the probability that all 4 cards chosen by Anita are in the set of 8
cards chosen by Babita?
A)48C4 x 52C4

B)48C4 x 52C8

C)48C8 x 52C8

D) None of the above

Solution: (A) The total number of possible combination would be 52C4 (For selecting
4 cards by Anita) * 52C8 (For selecting 8 cards by Babita). Since, the 4 cards that
Anita chooses is among the 8 cards which Babita has chosen, thus the number of
combinations possible is 52C4 (For selecting the 4 cards selected by Anita) * 48C4
(For selecting any other 4 cards by Babita, since the 4 cards selected by Anita are
common)

6. A player is randomly dealt a sequence of 13 cards from a deck of

52-cards. All sequences of 13 cards are equally likely. In an
equivalent model, the cards are chosen and dealt one at a time. When
choosing a card, the dealer is equally likely to pick any of the
cards that remain in the deck.

7. If you dealt 13 cards, what is the probability that the 13th card is a King?

A) 1/52 B) 1/13

C) 1/26 D) 1/12

Solution: (B) Since we are not told anything about the first 12 cards that are dealt,
the probability that the 13th card dealt is a King, is the same as the probability that
the first card dealt, or in fact any particular card dealt is a King, and this equals: 4/52

8. A fair six-sided die is rolled 6 times. What is the probability

of getting all outcomes as unique?

A) 0.01543 B) 0.01993

C) 0.23148 D) 0.03333

Solution: (A) For all the outcomes to be unique, we have 6 choices for the first turn,
5 for the second turn, 4 for the third turn and so on. Therefore the probability if
getting all unique outcomes will be equal to 0.01543

9. A group of 60 students is randomly split into 3 classes of equal

size. All partitions are equally likely. Jack and Jill are two
students belonging to that group. What is the probability that Jack
and Jill will end up in the same class?
A) 1/3 B) 19/59

C) 18/58 D) 1/2

Solution: (B) Assign a different number to each student from 1 to 60. Numbers 1 to
20 go in group 1, 21 to 40 go to group 2, 41 to 60 go to group 3. All possible
partitions are obtained with equal probability by a random assignment if these
numbers, it doesn’t matter with which students we start, so we are free to start by
assigning a random number to Jack and then we assign a random number to Jill.
After Jack has been assigned a random number there are 59 random numbers
available for Jill and 19 of these will put her in the same group as Jack. Therefore the
probability is 19/59

10. We have two coins, A and B. For each toss of coin A, the
probability of getting head is 1/2 and for each toss of coin B, the
probability of getting Heads is 1/3. All tosses of the same coin are
independent. We select a coin at random and toss it till we get a
head. The probability of selecting coin A is ¼ and coin B is 3/4.
What is the expected number of tosses to get the first heads?

A) 2.75 B) 3.35

C) 4.13 D) 5.33

Solution: (A) If coin A is selected then the number of times the coin would be tossed
for a guaranteed Heads is 2, similarly, for coin B it is 3. Thus the number of times
would be Tosses = 2 * (1/4)[probability of selecting coin A] + 3*(3/4)[probability of
selecting coin B] = 2.75

11. Suppose a life insurance company sells a $240,000 one-year term

life insurance policy to a 25-year old female for $210. The
probability that the female survives the year is .999592. Find the
expected value of this policy for the insurance company.

A) $131 B) $140

C) $112 D) $125

Solution: P(company loses the money ) = 0.99592

P(company does not lose the money ) = 0.000408

The amount of money the company loses if it loses = 240,000–210 = 239790 While
the money it gains is $210 Expected money the company will have to give =
239790*0.000408 = 97.8 Expect money company gets = 210. Therefore the value =
210–98 = $112
12. When an event A independent of itself?

A) Always

B) If and only if P(A)=0

C) If and only if P(A)=1

D) If and only if P(A)=0 or 1

Solution: (D) The event can only be independent of itself when either there is no
chance of it happening or when it is certain to happen. Event A and B is independent
when P(A ꓵ B) = P(A)*P(B). Now if B=A, P(A ꓵ A) = P(A)when P(A) = 0 or 1.

13. Suppose you’re in the final round of “Let’s make a deal”

game show and you are supposed to choose from three doors — 1, 2 & 3.
One of the three doors has a car behind it and other two doors
have goats.

Let’s say you choose Door 1 and the host opens Door 3 which has a
goat behind it. To assure the probability of your win, which of the
following options would you choose.

A) Switch your choice B) Retain your choice

C) It doesn’t matter probability of winning or losing is the same with or without

revealing one door

14. Cross-fertilizing a red and a white flower produces red flowers

25% of the time. Now we cross-fertilize five pairs of red and white
flowers and produce five offspring. What is the probability that
there are no red flower plants in the five offspring?

A) 23.7% B) 37.2%

C) 22.5% D) 27.3%

Solution: (A) The probability of offspring being Red is 0.25, thus the probability of the
offspring not being red is 0.75. Since all the pairs are independent of each other, the
probability that all the offsprings are not red would be (0.75)5 = 0.237. You can think
of this as a binomial with all failures.

15. A roulette wheel has 38 slots — 18 red, 18 black, and 2 green.

You play five games and always bet on red slots. How many games can
you expect to win?

A) 1.1165 B) 2.3684
C) 2.6316 D) 4.7368

Solution: (B) The probability that it would be Red in any spin is 18/38. Now, you are
playing the game 5 times and all the games are independent of each other. Thus, the
number of games that you can win would be 5*(18/38) = 2.3684

16. Some test scores follow a normal distribution with a mean of 18

and a standard deviation of 6. What proportion of test takers have
scored between 18 and 24?

A) 20% B) 22%

C) 34% D) None of the above

Solution: So here we would need to calculate the Z scores for value being 18 and 24.
We can easily doing that by putting sample mean as 18 and population mean as 18
with σ = 6 and calculating Z. Similarly we can calculate Z for sample mean as 24.

Z= (X-μ)/σ

Therefore for 26 as X, Z = (18–18)/6 = 0 , looking at the Z table we find 50% people

have scores below 18.

For 24 as X

Z = (24–18)/6 = 1, looking at the Z table we find 84% of people have scores below 24.
Therefore around 34% of people have scores between 18 and 24.

17. A jar contains 4 marbles. 3 Red & 1 white. Two marbles are drawn
with replacement after each draw. What is the probability that the
same color marble is drawn twice?

A) 1/2 B) 1/3

C) 5/8 D) 1/8

Solution: If the marbles are of the same color then it will be 3/4 * 3/4 + 1/4 * 1/4 =
5/8.

18. Which of the following events is most likely?

A) At least one 6, when 6 dice are rolled

B) At least 2 sixes when 12 dice are rolled

C) At least 3 sixes when 18 dice are rolled

D) All the above have same probability

Solution: (A)

Probability of ‘6’ turning up in a roll of dice is P(6) = (1/6) & P(6’) = (5/6). Thus,
probability of

∞ Case 1: (1/6) * (5/6)5 = 0.06698

∞ Case 2: (1/6)2 * (5/6)10 = 0.00448

∞ Case 3: (1/6)3 * (5/6)15 = 0.0003

Thus, the highest probability is Case 1

18. Suppose you were interviewed for a technical role. 50% of the
people who sat for the first interview received the call for the
second interview. 95% of the people who got a call for a second
interview felt good about their first interview. 75% of people who
did not receive a second call, also felt good about their first
interview. If you felt good after your first interview, what is the
probability that you will receive a second interview call?

A) 66% B) 56%

C) 75% D) 85%

Solution: (B) Let’s assume there are 100 people that gave the first round of
interviews. The 50 people got the interview call for the second round. Out of this
95 % felt good about their interview, which is 47.5. 50 people did not get a call for
the interview; out of which 75% felt good about, which is 37.5. Thus, the total
number of people that felt good after giving their interview is (37.5 + 47.5) 85. Thus,
out of 85 people who felt good, only 47.5 got the call for next round. Hence, the
probability of success is (47.5/85) = 0.558.

Another more accepted way to solve this problem is the Baye’s theorem. I leave it to
you to check for yourself.

19. A coin of diameter 1-inches is thrown on a table covered with a

grid of lines each two inches apart. What is the probability that
the coin lands inside a square without touching any of the lines of
the grid? You can assume that the person throwing has no skill in
throwing the coin and is throwing it randomly.

You can assume that the person throwing has no skill in throwing the
coin and is throwing it randomly.

A) 1/2 B) 1/4
C) Π/3 D) 1/3

Solution: (B) Think about where all the center of the coin can be when it lands on 2
inches grid and it does not touch the lines of the grid. If the yellow region is a 1 inch
square and the outside square is of 2 inches. If the center falls in the yellow region,
the coin will not touch the grid line. Since the total area is 4 and the area of the
yellow region is 1, the probability is ¼ .

20. In a class of 30 students, approximately what is the probability

that two of the students have their birthday on the same day
(defined by same day and month) (assuming it’s not a leap year)?

For example — Students with birthday 3rd Jan 1993 and 3rd Jan 1994
would be a favorable event.

A) 49% B) 52%

C) 70% D) 35%

Solution: The total number of combinations possible for no two persons to have the
same birthday in a class of 30 is 30 * (30–1)/2 = 435.

Now, there are 365 days in a year (assuming it’s not a leap year). Thus, the
probability of people having a different birthday would be 364/365. Now there are
870 combinations possible. Thus, the probability that no two people have the same
birthday is (364/365)⁴³⁵ = 0.303. Thus, the probability that two people would have
their birthdays on the same date would be 1–0.303 = 0.696

21. Ahmed is playing a lottery game where he must pick 2 numbers

from 0 to 9 followed by an English alphabet (from 26-letters). He
may choose the same number both times. If his ticket matches the 2
numbers and 1 letter drawn in order, he wins the grand prize and
receives $10405. If just his letter matches but one or both of the
numbers do not match, he wins $100. Under any other circumstance, he
wins nothing. The game costs him $5 to play. Suppose he has chosen
04R to play.

What is the expected net profit from playing this ticket?

A) $-2.81 B) $2.81

C) $-1.82 D) $1.82

Solution: (B) Expected value in this case

E(X) = P(grand prize)*(10405–5)+P(small)(100–5)+P(losing)*(-5)P(grand prize)=

(1/10)*(1/10)*(1/26)
P(small) = 1/26–1/2600, the reason we need to do this is we need to exclude the
case where he gets the letter right and also the numbers rights. Hence, we need to
remove the scenario of getting the letter right.

P(losing ) = 1–1/26–1/2600 Therefore we can fit in the values to get the expected
value as $2.81

22 Assume you sell sandwiches. 70% people choose egg, and the rest
choose chicken. What is the probability of selling 2 egg sandwiches
to the next 3 customers?

A) 0.343 B) 0.063

C) 0.44 D) 0.027

Solution: The probability of selling Egg sandwich is 0.7 & that of a chicken sandwich
is 0.3. Now, the probability that next 3 customers would order 2 egg sandwich is 3 *
0.7 * 0.7 *0.3 = 0.44. They can order them in any sequence, the probabilities would
still be the same.

HIV is still a very scary disease to even get tested for. The US military tests its
recruits for HIV when they are recruited. They are tested on three rounds of
Elisa( an HIV test) before they are termed to be positive.

The prior probability of anyone having HIV is 0.00148. The true positive rate for
Elisa is 93% and the true negative rate is 99%.

23. What is the probability that a recruit has HIV, given he tested
positive on first Elisa test? The prior probability of anyone having
HIV is 0.00148. The true positive rate for Elisa is 93% and the true
negative rate is 99%.

A) 12% B) 80%

C) 42% D) 14%

Solution: (A)

24. What is the probability of having HIV, given he tested positive

on Elisa the second time as well. The prior probability of anyone
having HIV is 0.00148. The true positive rate for Elisa is 93% and
the true negative rate is 99%.

A) 20% B) 42%

C) 93% D) 88%
Solution: ( C)

25. Suppose you’re playing a game in which we toss a fair coin

multiple times. You have already lost thrice where you guessed heads
but a tails appeared. Which of the below statements would be correct
in this case?

A) You should guess heads again since the tails has already occurred thrice and its
more likely for heads to occur now

B) You should say tails because guessing heads is not making you win

C) You have the same probability of winning in guessing either, hence whatever you
guess there is just a 50–50 chance of winning or losing

D) None of these

Solution: ( C) This is a classic problem of gambler’s fallacy/monte carlo fallacy, where

the person falsely starts to think that the results should even out in a few turns. The
gambler starts to believe that if we have received 3 heads, you should receive a 3
tails. This is however not true. The results would even out only in infinite number of
trials.

26. The inference using the frequentist approach will always yield
the same result as the Bayesian approach.

A) TRUE B) FALSE

Solution: (B) The frequentist Approach is highly dependent on how we define the
hypothesis while Bayesian approach helps us update our prior beliefs. Therefore the
frequentist approach might result in an opposite inference if we declare the
hypothesis differently. Hence the two approaches might not yield the same results.

27. Hospital records show that 75% of patients suffering from a

disease die due to that disease. What is the probability that 4 out
of the 6 randomly selected patients recover?

A) 0.17798 B) 0.13184

C) 0.03295 D) 0.35596

Solution: ( C) Think of this as a binomial since there are only 2 outcomes, either the
patient dies or he survives.

Here n =6, and x=4. p=0.25(probability if living(success)) q = 0.75(probability of

dying(failure))
P(X) = nCx pxqn-x = 6C4 (0.25)4(0.75)2 = 0.03295

28. The students of a particular class were given two tests for
evaluation. Twenty-five percent of the class cleared both the tests
and forty-five percent of the students were able to clear the
first test.

Calculate the percentage of students who passed the second test

given that they were also able to pass the first test.

A) 25% B) 42%

C) 55% D) 45%

Solution: ( C) This is a simple problem of conditional probability. Let A be the event

of passing in first test. B is the event of passing in the second test.

P(A ꓵ B) is passing in both the events. P(passing in second given he passed in the
first one) = P(A ꓵ B)/P(A) = 0.25/0.45 which is around 55%

29. While it is said that the probabilities of having a boy or a

girl are the same, let’s assume that the actual probability of
having a boy is slightly higher at 0.51. Suppose a couple plans to
have 3 children. What is the probability that exactly 2 of them will
be boys?

A) 0.38 B) 0.48

C) 0.58 D) 0.68

E) 0.78

Solution: (A) Think of this as a binomial distribution where getting a success is a boy
and failure is a girl. Therefore we need to calculate the probability of getting 2 out of
three successes. P(X) = nCx pxqn-x = 3C2 (0.51)2(0.49)1 = 0.382

30. Heights of 10 year-olds, regardless of gender, closely follow a

normal distribution with mean 55 inches and standard deviation 6
inches. Which of the following is true?

A) We would expect more number of 10 year-olds to be shorter than 55 inches than

the number of them who are taller than 55 inches

B) Roughly 95% of 10 year-olds are between 37 and 73 inches tall

C) A 10-year-old who is 65 inches tall would be considered more unusual than a 10-
year-old who is 45 inches tall
D) None of these

Solution: (D)

31. Heights of 10 year-olds, regardless of gender, closely follow a

normal distribution with mean 55 inches and a standard deviation 6
inches. Which of the following is true?

A) We would expect more number of 10 year-olds to be shorter than 55 inches than

the number of them who are taller than 55 inches

B) Roughly 95% of 10 year-olds are between 37 and 73 inches tall

C) A 10-year-old who is 65 inches tall would be considered more unusual than a 10-
year-old who is 45 inches tall

D) None of these

Solution: (D) None of the above statements are true.

32. About 30% of human twins are identical, and the rest are
fraternal. Identical twins are necessarily the same sex, half are
males and the other half are females. One-quarter of fraternal twins
are both males, one-quarter both female, and one-half are mixed: one
male, one female. You have just become a parent of twins and are
told they are both girls. Given this information, what is the
probability that they are identical?

A) 50% B) 72%

C) 46% D) 33%

Solution: ( C) This is a classic problem of Bayes theorem.

P(I) denoted Probability of being identical and P(~I) denotes Probability of not being
identical

P(Identical) = 0.3

P(not Identical)= 0.7

P(FF|I)= 0.5

P(MM|I)= 0.5

P(MM|~I)= 0.25
P(FF|~I)= 0.25

P(FM|~I)= 0.25

P(I|FF) = 0.46

33. Rob has fever and the doctor suspects it to be typhoid. To be

sure, the doctor wants to conduct the test. The test results
positive when the patient actually has typhoid 80% of the time. The
test gives positive when the patient does not have typhoid 10% of
the time. If 1% of the population has typhoid, what is the
probability that Rob has typhoid provided he tested positive?

A) 12% B) 7%

C) 25% D) 31.5%

Solution: (B) We need to find the probability of having typhoid given he tested
positive. =P(testing +ve and having typhoid) / P(testing positive)

= = 0.074

34. Jack is having two coins in his hand. Out of the two coins, one
is a real coin and the second one is a faulty one with Tails on both
sides. He blindfolds himself to choose a random coin and tosses it
in the air. The coin falls down with Tails facing upwards. What is
the probability that this tail is shown by the faulty coin?

A) 1/3 B) 2/3

C) 1/2 D) 1/4

Solution: (B) We need to find the probability of the coin being faulty given that it
showed tails.

P(Faulty) = 0.5

P(getting tails) = 3/4

P(faulty and tails) =0.5*1 = 0.5 Therefore the probability of coin being faulty given
that it showed tails would be 2/3

35. A fly has a life of between 4–6 days. What is the probability
that the fly will die at exactly 5 days?

A) 1/2 B) 1/4
C) 1/3 D) 0

Solution: (D) Here since the probabilities are continuous, the probabilities form a
mass function. The probability of a certain event is calculated by finding the area
under the curve for the given conditions. Here since we’re trying to calculate the
probability of the fly dying at exactly 5 days — the area under the curve would be 0.

Also to come to think of it, the probability if dying at exactly 5 days is impossible for
us to even figure out since we cannot measure with infinite precision if it was exactly
5 days.

I hope you will find the questionnaires useful for your career and also the credit goes
to aditya vidhya analytics from i was able to gather this set of interview
questionnaires for you.

Next, we will walk through the clustering questionnaire in the next article Part IV,
which will surprise you!

Thanks again, for your time, if you enjoyed this short article there are tons of topics in
advanced analytics, data science, and machine learning available in my medium repo.
https://medium.com/@bobrupakroy

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